The invention relates generally to computing systems provided with multi-layered user interfaces. In particular, it relates to a system for providing a user with useful summarized setting information for a multi-layered user interface using graphical and textual representations.
The ubiquitous printer is a device generally connected to a computing system for producing hardcopies, or printouts, of source documents. These source documents are typically generated using common application programs like word processors, spreadsheets, or drawing tools that would usually be installed in the computing system. To afford the computing system with printing functionality, it additionally needs to be installed with a printer driver corresponding to the connected printer.
Due to rapid and progressive development of printer technology over the recent years, many types of printers have appeared at the marketplace. Of the numerous types of printers commercially available now, inkjet and low-cost laser printers have become popular with many cost-conscious computer system owners. These computer system owners, however, have also evolved into sophisticated users. Hence, for a manufacturer of such types of printers to further distance itself from the competition in the crowded marketplace, it would need to additionally implement new useful printer features in each new type of printer.
One such inkjet printer offering new useful printer features is the HP Deskjet 1100C Printer from the Hewlett-Packard Company. The 1100C Printer is provided with, among other special printer features, a Handout feature. A user who chooses such a feature is given an opportunity to reduce the size of two, four or eight pages of a document and print these pages onto a single sheet of printout. The effect of such a feature can be seen in FIG. 1, where seven pages of a document are printed using the Handout feature to produce two sheets of printout.
Such printer features are optimally implemented in a printer driver, where these features are accessible to all the application programs in a computer system through the operating system. Moreover, with an expanding knowledge base for software programming and the availability of low-cost software production, printer drivers have now arrived at a state whereby users can opt for one of but many printer features available in each printer driver.
While such multi-feature printers are widely available and used, they suffer from disadvantages. With the addition of such new useful printer features to the printer drivers, thereby increasing the versatility of the printers, the complexity of these printer drivers have also increased manifold. What was earlier a simple act of selecting one of a few traditional printer setup options, such as the size and type of media on which a desired printout is made, is now a complicated process of choosing one of many different permutations of printer features and these traditional printer setup options. This process of choosing a permutation of printer features and setup options is usually done with a print setting user interface implemented in the printer driver. An important disadvantage addressed by the present invention is that a user selecting a printer features and setup options permutation nowadays will typically be confounded by and unsure of the effect that the selected permutation will have on a desired printout. This confusion and uncertainty arises because the user typically does not get sufficiently accurate information on the effect the printer features and setup options has on the desired printout. xe2x80x9cHelpxe2x80x9d functions provided by the printer driver also do not alleviate the problem since they usually provide lengthy descriptions of the print features and setup options, which are time-consuming to read and difficult to comprehend.
In addition, and more importantly, the print setting user interface is also typically implemented through means of a multi-layered user interface, whereby dialog boxes and tabs are used as shown in FIG. 2A. FIG. 2A shows the xe2x80x9cSetupxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cColourxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cFeaturesxe2x80x9d tabs available in the print setting user interface of the printer driver for the HP Deskjet 1100C Printer. The use of such a print setting multi-layered user interface results in the dispersion of printer features and setup options among the various dialog boxes and tabs. The top-most tab or layer always hides the lower layers and thereby render the print setting in those lower layers hidden from the view of the user, as shown in FIG. 2A. Therefore, the user would have to commit to memory the selected printer features and setup options permutation in order to correlate the effect of the print setting on the desired printout.
Various solutions to these problems have been proposed and made available in the marketplace. For example, the HP Deskjet 1100C Printer print setting multi-layered user interface uses a graphical image, for example bitmap B as shown in FIG. 2A, to represent a special printer feature, Booklet. A single bitmap is, however, static, inflexible, and not sufficient to represent the many possible permutations in the print setting multi-layered user interface. On the other hand, keeping a large cache of bitmaps for the many possible permutations is also not practical as the task of maintaining such a cache increases the disk usage requirements significantly.
A method of representing each permutation with multiple bitmaps is also used. However, this method requires more effort from the user in that the user has to view each individual bitmap separately before attempting to piece the various pieces of information together to visualize the effect of each permutation on the desired printout. The user may also spend more time guessing the effect of each permutation on the desired printout if the permutations are not accurately represented by the bitmaps. For example, the relative dimensions between a source document and its corresponding desired printout is not accurately represented in such solutions. Such solutions also do not preserve the aspect ratio of the source document and the corresponding desired printout. The changes in aspect ratio due to, for example, media size selections or document orientation change, are not reflected in the bitmaps representations of such solutions.
The print setting multi-layered user interface and its use of tabs, as mentioned above, hides most of the information available in the layers below the top-most layer from the user. The HP Deskjet 1100C Printer attempts to alleviate such a problem by showing the bitmap B which represents the Booklet feature selected in the hidden lower Feature layer, in the current top-most Setup layer as shown in FIG. 2B. However, this solution also bears the same limitations inherent with the use of bitmaps as described above. Moreover, only the bitmap representation of the selected special printer feature is shown to the user. The information provided by the bitmap B is therefore of little use and insufficient to the user who is trying to visualize the effect of the different permutations of printer features and setup options on the desired printout.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system for providing a user with useful summarized setting information for a multi-layered user interface using graphical and textual representations.
A computing system having a multi-layered user interface for providing setting functionality is provided with a system for providing a user with useful summarized setting information. A set of setting information is stored in a memory, which is used by the multi-layered user interface for providing the setting functionality. The setting information is updated whenever the user performs a setting function. The setting information is also made accessible for interpretation and reorganization, the result of which is subsequently presented on a display of the computing system for providing the useful summarized setting information.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the useful summarized setting information is juxtaposed with the multi-layered user interface. In addition, the useful summarized setting information includes graphical and textual representations of the setting information. Furthermore, the graphical representations are prepared by a vectored drawing approach. The graphical representations are also prepared by a layered drawing approach.